


Barbie Girl

by persephone_il (the_ragnarok)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-02
Updated: 2004-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:43:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ragnarok/pseuds/persephone_il
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair has standards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barbie Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Major thanks to Sharakh for her thoughtful comments and to everyone who sent me feedback for Resisting Temptation - in  
> particular to whoever it was (I'm terrible with names, sorry) who mentioned a few inconsistencies in the first story.
> 
> Just a friendly reminder - this is a sequel, and there are some lines in it that may be unclear to anyone who hadn't read the first story.  
> The story does not contain any song lyrics or, indeed, has anything to do with the song Barbie Girl. The title was picked at random, for reasons known only to my subconcious.

Jim had to look three times at the girl sitting on his sofa before he could quite convince himself he wasn't experiencing some sort of paperwork-induced hallucination. She looked like a demented Anorexia Barbie with an artistic (or, possibly, sadistic) owner. The smell of her hunger made Jim wince, as did the color of her hair - what little there was of it.

"Kaye, this is my roommate," Blair was saying. "He's a cop, I told you about it."

Barbie-girl flipped a particularly long fringe of neon-blue hair before saying, "We are all as one in the hands of justice."

Jim glanced at Blair in hopes of getting a translation. Blair shrugged minutely and rose, helping the vision in blue get up. Jim felt it was decent to wait until he heard the elevator open at floor lever and until Blair was back on the couch, smirking, before saying, "Tell me the truth, now. They were going to put it to sleep if you hadn't shown up, weren't they?"

Blair narrowed his eyes. "She's a very nice girl."

"Sandburg, I refuse to admit that thing was female before I see a signed note from a doctor. Women are supposed to have breasts."

Blair's scowl did little to hide his impending laughter. "Jim! She has breasts."

"One word for you: Implants. That's all I'm saying."

"Don't I wish," Blair said, and ducked the pillow Jim threw at him. "Y'know, I'd be a lot more intimidated by that if you actually bothered to aim."

"Don't worry, Sharkbait. I don't waste my superb sense of aim on people who can't tell normal, decent humans from mutant skeletons." He opened his beer, allowing himself to bask in Blair's dark mutters. "I can hear that, you know," he said amicably.

"I meant you to. Gimme that." Blair snatched Jim's bottle, greedily emptying it. "Thanks," he said, wiping his mouth. Jim tilted his head and looked at Blair. Blair ducked his head and said, slightly defensive, "Hey, what?"

"Tell me one thing-- this is just a scientific enquiry. Do you have a death wish, or are you really this stupid?"

"Must be," Blair said as he rose from the couch. "I'm still living here, aren't I? Want me to get you another one?" he asked from the kitchen.

"Yeah." Jim picked up the empty beer bottle and briefly considered hurtling it at Blair. Nah. He'll have to explain to Simon why the kid had a concussion - again - as well as clean up the broken glass. Jim sighed. The work of the protector was hard, ungrateful and occasionally downright pointless.

He temporarily forgave Blair when a cold bottle pressed itself into his hand. "Care to explain," he said, "how come you're hanging around with a sack of bones that makes Naomi sound sane?"

Blair's eyes had a dangerous look in them for a minute. "Lay off my mom, Jim." They returned to their usual amicability as Blair took a swig of beer and said, "She audits one of my psychology classes. We started talking, and she had some really cool insights, so I offered to buy her a latte, and..." He shrugged. "Here we are."

Jim studied him with interest. "You didn't get any."

"You are aware that a man can respect a woman purely for her mind, right?" Blair glanced at him, and sighed. "Besides, I have standards."

Jim felt his eyebrows climbing upwards. "Well," he said. "That must be a recent development."

Blair threw at him the same pillow Jim had previously used as a projectile. "Fuck off."

"Oh, no, no. I seem to remember someone who smelled an awful lot like he was gettin' some when he was seeing--"

"Shut up," Blair yelled, "I am not hearing this, I am not listening to this." He hid his hands behind his ears and clenched his eyes shut. "I am in a quiet, green place."

"--someone who could have qualified as the Hunchback of Notre Dame," Jim went on mercilessly.

Blair detached his palms from his ears and stared at them as though he was considering whether he successfully could pull off a strangulation. "She had mild scoliosis. Mild, Jim. No one else would've even noticed it."

"Says the man of the eternal squint."

"The fact that I wear glasses so I can drive does not give you the right to mock my eyesight." Blair turned his eyes to Jim. His face wore a thoughtful expression. "Wait a second. 'Smelled like he was getting any'?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to miss, Einstein." He cuffed Blair gently. "Even you don't normally stink of Issey Miyake's latest."

"Oh." But the interest in Blair's face would not wane. "You smelled her perfume on me? Is that it?"

He eyed Blair wearily. "Sandburg, I told you what I smelled. You don't need to ask - or do I look like fucking Lassie to you? Oh, shut up," he said as Blair started sniggering. "See what I mean? You've got a one-track mind. If you ever hung around anyone you liked, however remotely, and didn't put the moves on them for any other reason than the fear of being bitchslapped, I'll--"

He was going to come up with an appropriate threat before Blair stiffened and said, "I like you." He said it like it was no big deal, but it still sounded like a dare.

Oh, shit. Jim blinked. He didn't have a lot of time to think up a response-- Blair was looking more distant by the second, so he did the first thing that came to mind.

Softly, he touched his hand to Blair's cheek. "Consider yourself bitchslapped," he said, and got up. "Look, I'm getting up early tomorrow--"

"Yeah," Blair said, in a slightly guarded tone, and proceeded to make some lame joke about birds and worms Jim didn't care to listen to.

He only realized his heart was thundering when he reached the top stair. He would've blamed it on the climb, but being winded by a few measly stairs was actually a worse lookout than thinking something between Blair and himself might be...

What?

His feet, who didn't know better, turned him around and marched him down the stairs. He didn't bother to knock before opening Blair's door, and regretted it when he caught Blair half-in, half out of his jeans. He might have apologized, but his mind seemed to have allied with his legs and he said, "You didn't come on to me."

Cautiously, Blair said, "I know, Jim. I was there."

"Look. Don't tell me you're not interested--" He almost stopped when Blair blushed and looked away. "I _can_ smell it. I mean, there's only so much a spray can is capable of. When you use it. And it was a long time before you did."

"You could have said something." Blair was still, but his eyes were frantic, apparently refusing to focus on Jim or his own semi-nakedness. They compromised by settling on the floor.

"How would that have helped? It would have just embarrassed you. It's not like you're the first person in the world to smell horny, Chief. Even around me." Jim shifted. Some of Blair's unease was rubbing off on him, and wasn't that a phrase that would make Sandburg snort? "Anyway, that's not the subject."

"Like you said," Blair told the carpet. "What's the point?"

Jim looked at him incredulously. "Excuse me, but did I just hear Blair Sandburg ask what's the point of hitting on someone?"

Finally, Blair mustered the... courage, or whatever it was, to look Jim in the eye. "I guess you did."

"What about the fact that I might have said 'yes'?"

Blair's eyes widened momentarily, but Jim had to give the guy this: he didn't stay stunned for long. "Yeah. What about it?"

Jim blinked at him in shock.

"Okay. So I proposition you, you take me up on it, fun and games are to be had. What's next?"

Jim felt his neck heating. "Um."

"Not that." Blair waved him off irritably. "I mean, what's _next_. Like, when it's morning and I look at you and I think, Holy crap, I just had sex with my best friend. _Again_."

Jim raised his hand. "For the sake of those of us who weren't handed a Sandburg-to-English dictionary, could you explain about the _again_ part?"

Blair took a deep breath. "Look. You went to therapy, right?"

"A couple of times." If Jim wasn't used to Blair's little conversational bypasses, he'd have throttled the guy by now.

"Did the therapist ever talk to you about your reaccuring patterns in relationships?"

Against his will, Jim felt the defensive part of him starting to cry, "Intruder! Intruder!". "No."

"No need to get monosyllabic on me, Jim. Just hear me out." Blair closed his eyes. "By the way, would you mind--" he made a frantic turn-around gesture. "I'm getting cold."

"For crying out loud, Chief, we're talking about the chances of us having sex with each other. You don't have anything I haven't seen yet." But he turned nonetheless.

"Heh. You haven't seen anything yet, pal." Blair began to snigger, then stopped. "Crap. See? This is what I'm getting at. I keep turning everything into sex. Yeah, yeah, you told me so. Get over it, this is kind of important." Jim heard a rustle of clothing, a pause, and a sigh. "Yeah. You can turn back, if you like." Jim did. "Thing is, it _is_ mostly like what you said. When I like someone, I _like_ them. In a not-just-friendly way. I just don't see why the hell not. I mean, sex is fun, sex is healthy, we are all basically intelligent animals..." Blair shrugged helplessly.

"I see," Jim said.

"No, I don't think you do." Blair raked a hand through his hair. "Most people don't. They think they're looking for some fast and friendly action, but what they really want is a relationship, or a father figure, or affirmation, or-- I don't know-- something. Anything. And I can't do that, Jim, I never signed on for that."

"I didn't ask you to," Jim said, quietly.

Blair sank down unto the bed. "No, I know you didn't," and he sounded so defeated that Jim couldn't really feel hurt. "But that's what it comes to, eventually. Jim--" He raised his eyes and gave Jim the most earnest look he'd ever seen. "You never let go, man. Of anything. It wouldn't just be clean, harmless fun. Not for you."

Jim cast his eyes around the room. "In here? It wouldn't be clean no matter what I'd do." He sat down beside Blair.

"It's not your fault I'm terrible with boundaries," Blair said.

"Naw," Jim said, and casually draped his arm across Blair's shoulder. "I know it isn't." The room was quiet for a while, and Jim was starting to remember he really did have to get up early the next morning when Blair squirmed slightly. He started removing his arm, but Blair leaned into him, and he let it lie.

"Hey," Blair said. "You know what I said about Kaye?"

Jim grunted.

"It was kind of not exactly correct."

In the privacy the dark gave him, Jim rolled his eyes.

"Well, she did turn up at this Psychology lecture. And we did talk. But--"

"You slept with her." Jim wasn't sure whether he felt appalled, amused or just plain exasperated.

"No, I didn't. That's the whole point. She's got this body-image problem--"

"Tell me about it. From the smell of her, she hadn't had a decent meal in a week."

Blair ploughed on in spite of Jim's interruption. "--and she thought some, you know, good times with someone who appreciated the inside rather than the outside might help her feel better about herself."

Jim knew he was grinning like an idiot. "But?"

"But, apparently, I remind her of this friend her father had, who was kind of slimy and really not much of an object of affection. So I don't know what I would've done about her outsides, but she didn't want anything to do with mine."

"It's amazing. You actually do have standards."

Blair's head was a warm weight on his shoulder, and Jim didn't really mind. "Yeah. I don't have sex with emotionally damaged people who are only in it because they said they'd be."

"Chief?"

Blair shifted slightly. "Hmm?"

"You don't remind me of any of my father's friends."

Blair, instead of snorting, only wrapped his arm around Jim's back for a moment, then got up. "You've got work tomorrow."

"Yeah." He smacked Blair's hand away and got up by himself. "You need a ride?"

"Nah. I've got a psychology class at eight twenty. Guess who's coming to pick me up?"

This time, Jim made certain Blair could see him rolling his eyes.

When he woke up the next morning, he'd felt oddly surprised that he'd been able to sleep quite so well. He found himself humming as poured himself a cup of coffee. He even had five minutes or so to sit down and drink it before going off. In a fit of whimsy, he grabbed a post-it and scribbled:

"Chief,

Try not to suffocate on your own drool today. Give the ladies my regards.

\--J."

Jim looked it over. He was quite certain it looked stupid and pointless, but that was some of the point, wasn't it? He was making rude comments on Blair's love life. Things were okay again, just like they were before the Demented Barbie from Hell showed up.

He smiled. The message was there, summed up nicely. He even whistled a bit as locked the door behind him.

* * *


End file.
